Monarch Cookies

Monarch Monarch Cookie Ingredients:


3/4 cup softened butter
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 3.4-oz package Jello vanilla instant pudding (Not the sugar free or stove top version)
1 egg

1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda


Chocolate variation:
use chocolate pudding and add 1/2 tsp of cinnamon


Preheat oven to 350. Beat butter, sugar, dry pudding mix and egg in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Combine remaining dry ingredients. Gradually add to pudding mixture, beating until well blended after each addition. Form into ball. You may refrigerate up to 1 hour if dough is soft, but I did not find necessary. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch think. Cut into shapes, place on parchment paper on baking sheet. Reroll scraps and cut additional cookies. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until slightly firm. Cool on wire racks and decorate as desired.

Decorating:
We used 4 colors of Wilton Cookie Icing in the 10 oz bottles (red, yellow, white and black). Michael's sells them; see attached photo. Mix yellow and red together to make 2 shades of orange. With a clean flat paint brush, paint the yellow-orange shade on the 2 bottom "wings", and paint the darker shade on the top wings. Allow to dry -- about an hour. Then squeeze the black heavy lines for the border of the 4 wings. You may also put black in a baggie and cut a tiny hole in the tip to make the thin veins within the wings' borders. When the black is dry -- make the white dots on the wing borders; we used the baggie technique to make tiny dots.